She plays the straight-faced, ever-powerful Daenerys, Mother of Dragons on the hit television show Game Of Thrones.

But Emilia Clarke says her super-serious role in the unparalleled fantasy series has influenced how people have perceived her personality, and it’s far from accurate.

Speaking with The Herald Sun in an interview published on Sunday, the 29-year-old explains she struggled at first to find acting parts.

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‘I don’t think people were quite aware that I could crack a smile’: Emilia Clarke says her super-serious role in Game Of Thrones has influenced how people have perceived her personality

‘After Game Of Thrones, I don’t think people were quite aware that I could crack a smile,’ she says.

But a quick scroll through Emilia’s Instagram and fans will see smiling is something she rarely stops doing, with a penchant for making fun of herself.

So when the opportunity came to play the quirky, ‘goofball’ character of Lou Clark in the tear-jerking comedy/drama Me Before You, she says it was a role she was born to play.

Happy camper: A quick scroll through Emilia’s Instagram and fans will see smiling is something she rarely stops doing

‘The pranks continue’: The playful actress has a penchant for making fun of herself

‘I basically read the book and was like: “Someone wrote me, Emilia, down in a book” — and now I will do everything in my power to get this part!’ she says.

In fact, Emilia was reading Jojo Moyes’ bestselling novel while filming the action film Terminator Genisys, where she stared alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger.

‘I was like, “hush now, Arnold”, I’m just going to go over here and cry like a little girl into my grenade launcher,’ she laughed at a recent screening of the film in Los Angeles.

‘Someone wrote me, Emilia, down in a book’: The brunette beauty said she took to the character of Lou in Me Before You instantly

Questioned: The author was said to have raised an eyebrow when director Thea Sharrock said she had Emilia in mind for the role

But the author was said to have raised an eyebrow when director Thea Sharrock said she had Emilia in mind for the role, having only known her from Game Of Thrones.

Lou is an ordinary, happy-go-lucky, small-town girl whose life gets upended when she takes a sorely needed job working for a handsome, deeply depressed man, Will, who was recently paralysed.

In other words, Lou is ‘a million miles away from Khaleesi,’ Sharrock said at the screening in LA earlier this month.

Me Before You opens in Australian cinemas on June 16.

Tear-jerking: Me Before You opens in Australian cinemas on June 16